Peterson should temper talk of rushing record

Published: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 11:46 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 11:46 p.m.

I love Adrian Peterson, both of them. But in this case particular case, I’m talking about the current Minnesota Vikings running back who just pushed himself out on the dreaded five-year-plan limb.

I love his confidence and his skill set, his personality and the fact that he seems to keep himself squarely within the sports pages and not the roundup of police activity, save for last year’s comical offseason tirade in which a bartender cut him off.

I think he should’ve won the Heisman Trophy as a true freshman at Oklahoma as surely as he won the MVP of the National Football League last season.

I just don’t believe him. ... Not when he’s already taken aim on Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.

Peterson has now called his shot, saying he will break Smith’s NFL career rushing record “in 2017.”

Fresh off a more than 2,000-yard season, but also off a severe knee injury, the Vikings star is full of adrenaline as another training camp opens, and more obstacles are laid in his path for the 2013 season.

What we see of Peterson is a man among boys, but, now at age 28, the boys will soon be catching up.

If there was someone not impressed with what he accomplished last season, I haven’t met them. But he’s suddenly predicting a series of seasons as he surpasses age 30 that will make last year’s highwater mark seem tame instead of the anomoly that it was.

There was a time when Jim Brown’s career rushing record of 12,312 yards was the gold standard in the NFL.

Why wouldn’t it be? Brown was perhaps the greatest running back to ever play the game, and bowed out in order to pursue acting and other endeavours at a healthy age 29, after only nine years in Cleveland, playing 12- and 14-game seasons.

Brown was so possessive of his record that when Pittsburgh’s Franco Harris approached it almost two decades later, Brown challenged Harris to a 40-yard dash and said he would return to the NFL at age 48 to reclaim his record if he beat Harris in the foot race.

Harris fell short, as did Washington’s John Riggins and Tony Dorsett of Dallas. It wasn’t until the incomparable Walter Payton flew past Brown’s mark and added another 4,500 yards or so to the record that the number truly seemed out of reach.

But there was Emmitt, working diligently as first the national high school player of the year in Pensacola, then as a three-year stud at the University of Florida before hopping on the first-round launching pad in the 1990 NFL Draft and finding his perfect home in the perfect system as a Dallas Cowboy. There, he got lost behind a mountainous offensive line until the first glimmer of daylight caught his coccyx pad on fire. He was a sight to behold.

In two of his first three years in Dallas, Emmitt won the NFL rushing title and the Cowboys won the Super Bowl in his third season. A brief holdout in 1993 had Emmitt in street clothes, irked by his rookie contract, while Dallas was out of the chute losing to the hated Washington Redskins and the Buffalo Bills in a Super Bowl rematch. A deal was done, the Cowboys won seven straight, then eventually went back to the Super Bowl, where they beat the Bills again.

Emmitt’s legend grew. And another Super Bowl crown was added.

Even then, it wasn’t a slam dunk that the 5-foot-9, 220-pound fireplug who was only as fast as he needed to be would be challenging the Payton legend. Detroit’s Barry Sanders was flying under the radar, only half as hittable and just as productive as Emmitt, and certainly the top candidate to dive into the record books.

But when Sanders pulled a Jim Brown and retired in his prime with his fortune and health, the record was there for Emmitt, who got his last carries as a Cardinal and entered the Hall of Fame with an NFL-best 18,355 rushing yards.

Lost in the arguments over the best backs ever, and through the cutting room’s spaghetti floor of O.J. Simpson and Eric Dickerson highlight tape is the king of the mountain from Escambia High School in Pensacola.

It’s going to take one heck of a back to combine the patience, durability and productivity of Emmitt Smith.

Adrian Peterson is possibly the best we have at the moment, but someone should let him know he’s already a full season behind Emmitt’s pace, has three fewer championships and two fewer rushing titles at this point in his career ... and he’s only getting older.

Having marveled at Peterson in college, I also couldn’t help but notice the high ankle sprain and broken collarbone that put him on the Oklahoma shelf before he entered the NFL.

He’s fun to watch and an amazing specimen, but I’m not certain Peterson is anything more special than LaDainian Tomlinson, or Marshall Faulk, or Eric Dickerson, or Marcus Allen, or Edgerrin James ... all of whom fell short in their quest for the NFL record book because when they turned 30, they, well, they looked 30.

Almost everyone is impressed with Peterson’s 8,849 yards since he entered the NFL. They will be even more impressed if from this day forward, when running backs traditionally go on the decline, he adds another Earl Campbell or Shaun Alexander career total to his current numbers and actually passes Emmitt.

Good luck with all that.

RANDOM THOUGHTS: Simultaneous celebrity and normal college student argument aside, am I the only one who wonders why every episode of the Johnny Manziel Summer Debauchery Show ends without the Heisman winner getting a citation for underage drinking? ... After last year’s collapse, is there any team in baseball with more singular focus than the Pittsburgh Pirates? Those guys just won’t go away.

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